Waters of mountain peaks,
Spirits of liberty
Leaving your pure retreats
For work in the world.
Soiling your crystal springs
With the waste that is whirled to your breast as you run,
Until you are foul as the crawling leviathan
That devours you,
And uses you to carry waste and earth
For the making of land at the gulf,
For the conquest of land for the feet of men.

* * * * *

De Soto, Marquette and La Salle
Planting your cross in vain,
Gaining neither gold nor ivory,
Nor tribute
For France or Spain.
Making land alone
For liberty!
You could proclaim in the name of the cross
The dominion of kings over a world that was new.
But the river has altered its course:
There are fertile fields
For a thousand miles where the river flowed that you knew.
And there are liberty and democracy
For thousands of miles
Where in the name of kings, and for the cross
You tramped the tangles for treasure.